Pollution in Delhi: Companies like Google and Coca-Cola equip workplaces with purifiers

Delhi’s air quality problems have become legendary, with many expats deciding to leave the city or to send their families back home.Varuni Khosla&Prachi Verma | ET Bureau | November 10, 2015, 06:50 IST

Delhi's air quality problems have become legendary, with many expats deciding to leave the city or to send their families back home.New Delhi: Last week, an employee at Honeywell’s Pune office visited Delhi for a project along with her six-year-old son. Within days of her visit, her son was diagnosed with pharyngitis. The paediatrician blamed it on air pollution and advised her to return to Pune immediately.

Delhi’s air quality problems have become legendary, with many expats deciding to leave the city or to send their families back home, and corporates are increasingly taking note of it.

Firms such as Google, Coca-Cola, Honeywell, Whirlpool and SAP Labs have started equipping their workspaces with air purifiers and some are offering them to employees at a discount at a time when respiratory diseases are on the rise in the Capital.

These companies now consider it important to take preventive measures to counteract the rising air pollution, especially during the winter months, in Delhi-NCR where respirable suspended particulate matter (RSPM) in the air is nearly 16 times higher than the prescribed limit set by the World Health Organization (WHO) at 316 ìg/m3, nearly twice that of Beijing, another highly polluted capital city.

“We work hard to create the healthiest, happiest and most productive work environments possible that support peak performance and inspire well-being and this is one such endeavour,” said a spokesperson of Google India that has installed high quality MERV 13 air-filters with activated carbon in the air handling units in its office in Gurgaon.

When the company was moving into this eco-friendly building around September last year, it had hired some experts to do some checklists to ensure a happy and healthy workplace. One of the areas they checked was the air quality, while others included food and making the workspace fun.The air filters in the building are cleaned and washed regularly so that the levels of filtration is monitored, the company spokesperson said.

Whirlpool India’s Vice-President-HR for South Asia, Sarthak Raychaudhuri said most companies don’t realise the importance of keeping the AC ducts clean and inadvertently pump back the air from these ducts into the system. Whirlpool India, which also deals in the business of air-purifiers, has installed them in its offices.

Coca-Cola India, meanwhile, is moving its corporate office in Gurgaon in the National Capital Region to a building, the One Horizon Center that boasts of ‘20 times cleaner air quality’, based on a test done in June. As per the test done by Swiss testing and certification firm SGS, the building had RSPM levels of 35 ìg/m3 while it was 700ìg/m3 in outside air. One Horizon Center, which also houses corporate offices of Apple, Facebook and Vistara, is a 50-50 joint venture between DLF and Hines. Companies that sell air purifiers say there’s a significant increase in interest and queries from corporates even though individual buyers drive most of the demand.

“The demand from the companies is low but we are seeing a lot of traction,” said Jayati Singh, business head, air and health & wellness, at Philips India which launched its range of air purifiers last year. “Mostly, the embassies and expat-led companies are putting air purifiers in their offices but we expect other companies to follow as well,” she told ET.

Philips boasts of almost 500% rise in demand for its air purifiers in a year, led by retail customers. While Delhi-NCR unsurprisingly accounts for the highest number of sales, there’s rising demand for air purifiers in other highly polluted cities such as Bengaluru and Hyderabad. “We are seeing a lot of action already here in India and expect the demand for purifiers to soar,” Singh said. Honeywell, which also makes air purifiers, is offering about 35% discounts on these products to its employees.

The company has installed air purifier units in its offices in Gurgaon and Pune while its office in Bengaluru will have a unit installed by the first week of December.

In Bengaluru, the country’s second-most polluted city, some other corporates too are keen to ensure clean air in their office. SAP Labs India, which has its office in Whitefield, has devoted as much as 70% of space in its campus to greenery and gardens. “A green campus ensures that the air our employees breathe is of good quality,” said Mahesh Nayak, chief operating officer at SAP Labs India.

“Also, we have signed up with an external vendor to do a monthly indoor air quality audit to ensure that the air quality in our buildings meet all the clean air parameters,” he said.

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